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sila: whoa!! that sure looks like fun! well done on participating and great job learning! hopefully you can…Hisham: Sure thing, Luke! Hope to see the birthday wish too if it’s possible.Luke: Hi, I would like to use one of ur photo to design a birthday wish for Sitiawan. I would put a credit …Hisham: Let’s just say “Canto Bight” was originally the name of some Tapani Sector noble’s pet duck.Edward: Or the city was named after the planet. Or they were both named after some forgotten dignitary. Weird…sila: glad that opah felt better though. hope she continues to feel healthy.sila: yay to a successful surgery! i hope you are recovering nicely. i’m imagining weird things with the s…Hisham: Thanks, chief. And yes I think your name is the longest we’ve ever had on here. Haha.

About

Hisham and Sila has been writing stuff down on this weblog since 2005. Sometimes they post photos of family, sometimes they talk about film, books and music, sometimes there is artwork and stuff about tabletop gaming.

Not too terribly late this month! And here is the 3-year-old Yaya on the morning of her birthday!

Before we start, just a note that this is going to be the last of the long monthly blog recapping her entire day. While I'm torn about the decision, I think three years of this has been a lot. I'm not going to stop blogging on her birthday, just not quite as long an entry just chatting about what she's done or accomplished, and maybe one or two pictures. Three years is a long time. I'll miss it. But there will still be long entries when we have stuff to say. Plus with Yaya's Adik's impending arrival, inshallah, in the interest of equality I will try to do a monthly blog for the new little one when the time comes and Yaya will no doubt be prominently featured in those. Right?

I meant to share this a lot earlier but time got away from me. Yaya is getting an Adik (little sibling)! This was taken on 28 June 2011, when Adik was at 13 weeks and 1 day old. Adik was definitely active and having a dance party in there while we looked on. (S)he seems to be doing fine so far. Next ultrasound in a few weeks.

We are all very excited (well I don't know how excited Lily is) but the rest of us are psyched to welcome a new addition to our home and family (EDD 2 January 2012). Wish us all luck in the upcoming months!

Last Sunday, I ran a Star Wars RPG D6 game for the GOKL group. It started out as a one-shot, but who knows; the tale might continue another time.

The Rancid Putrefaction of a Cosmic Caterwauling Cabal

Episode 312: All Heaven Broke Loose

Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, aboard the space station Kwenn that served as deep space commerce and transport hub, there was a Rebel cell, who sat all day for days in a spacer's cantina named The Drunken Dewback, waiting for their first mission. Then one day the young bartender gestured them to the bar. She told them to go to Anchorhead on Tatooine where they will be given an important mission briefing.

Chapter One - We're So Starving

The Rebel cell consisted of Avril Mantessa, Pew Pew and Tyvokka.

Avril was a young Jedi who had been cloistered away and trained by her Jedi parents in secret after the Jedi Purge. She has yet to use her lightsabre in combat. Pew Pew was a short furry Ewok gunslinger who wore a wide-brimmed sombrero, a poncho and a pair of blaster pistols. No one knew where he came from. And finally, Tyvokka was a Wookiee who owed a life debt to a pirate who died recently. Finding himself without an aim in life, he signed up with a group of rebels.

Lompy watches as Tyvokka the Wookiee mulls over his next step with Pew Pew the Ewok strapped to his chest baby pouch.

The trio headed down to the spaceport levels and entered a bay filled with light freighters and transports.

The Bare Bones Game Systempublished byDwD Studios - the rules-lite, role-playing game featured in the previous post - also required a cover art. I was commissioned to produce a comic-style scene of the characters in the fantasy template cards appropriating loot.

Here is the step-by-step process of how the cover came to be.

Click on the above to view the full artwork. Or you could also scroll down to the end of this blog post for it.

I start with a rough sketch of the cover in black and white, overlaid with the margin and bleed marks.

The Bare Bones Game System - to be published by DwD Studios - is a rules-lite, multi-genre role-playing game formatted onto playing card-sized cards. Here are artwork for players that will be printed on card-sized character sheets for a standard fantasy-type world with the usual suspects: Human, Elf, Halfling and Dwarf.

Recently, I have been commissioned by Superhuman Games to produce seven Power Cards for their licenced Villains and Vigilantes card game. I am honoured to be illustrating scenes with characters created by Jeff Dee.

Tussle on the Tracks

Spyder and Condor are grappling on the subway tracks as a train approaches.

Power Pack is one of Sila's favourite comic books back in the day. When I thought about submitting art to the Cornered blog where artists reproduce corner art from comic books, I figured, "Why not Power Pack?" Here they are: Alex, Julie, Jack and Katie Power!